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Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

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Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#631

Post by kennywinker »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #522
kennywinker wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree, your straw-man is plainly false. Amazon does need executives, software developers, and warehouses. Amazon is a functioning + profitable business. If it can't continue to be a functioning + profitable business if it pays every employee a good wage, it doesn't deserve to exist anymore - it needs to die to make room for a business that CAN do that. But I don't actually think that amazon has to exploit its…

You are welcome to start your own Amazon competitor with however much profit you would like. If you are willing to accept less profit than Amazon, then you should be able to steal customers and employees by offering lower prices and better quality of life at work. Same goes for Walmart/Target/any other retail business. Maybe all the execs at these established retail businesses working for decades know what they are d…

The point of my criticism is to show that we can do better without losing same day delivery. These companies are exploitive, and the more people who see that the more likely it is to change in one of three ways:

Through public pressure. I don’t buy from amazon anymore because of this.

Through government action. But given how partisan politics in the usa are, i wouldn’t hold my breath.

Through action from workers. Unionization and work stoppages. I think this is the most likely and the most healthy option for our society.

If you want to be a bystander while people’s lives get chewed up and spat out so a few people can get rich, that’s on your conscience.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#632

Post by ajsnigrutin »

TMWNN wrote: post #572
mywittyname wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swiss Franc has traditionally been a strong currency. Probably the world's strongest. The CHF has gained steadily on the EUR since the pandemic and is up about 10% since a year ago. That alone is going to offset a lot of the inflation.

USD is up 8% versus EUR YTD ($1 = €0.88 then, €0.95 now). US, unlike Europe, does not actually need Russian oil/gas. And yet, US inflation is above the world average ( https://www.barrons.com/articles/inflation-has-become-a-glob... >).

Both US and EU printed huge amounts of money during the last few years, and the swiss, it seems, didn't.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#633

Post by ajsnigrutin »

rexreed wrote: post #258
pram wrote: post #17

“We would love you back in 90 days,” Pagan says the HR staff member told him. In the meantime, Pagan should “do some GrubHub or Uber,” the HR employee said. lol this is just monstrous.

Let's quote more of this for context: Pagan began working at the Amazon delivery hub in October and, within two months, had been promoted to a role on the safety committee for the facility. The new role didn’t come with a pay raise, and is on top of a worker’s core tasks, but Pagan saw it as a stepping stone to an official promotion. But in April, Pagan told Recode, he took two days off to have an infected tooth look…

I never understood limited sick days... i mean.. you're sick, how can you limit your sickness to X days?

But yeah, seems to be an US-only anomaly, atleast compared to the rest of the developed world.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#634

Post by unityByFreedom »

FFRefresh wrote: post #280
youessayyyaway wrote: post #81

I think this article might bury the lede a bit: >Walmart is offering some workers with past warehouse experience as much as $25 an hour. An Amazon executive told Reuters in late 2021 that the company was bumping the average starting wage for new hires in the US to more than $18 an hour, attributing the decision to intense competition among employers. People used to work for Amazon warehouses in the 2010s because $15/…

>Walmart is offering some workers with past warehouse experience as much as $25 an hour. An Amazon executive told Reuters in late 2021 that the company was bumping the average starting wage for new hires in the US to more than $18 an hour, attributing the decision to intense competition among employers. This is a common type of formulation in journalism that often reveals the bias of the journalist. 1. Walmart pays S…

I read it the same way and completely agree with you. Grammar and the context in which statements are presented can be biased too.

I don't know whether they teach that in journalism school. My guess is that they do, and that this type of bias only leaks out now due to the overwhelming amount of citizen journalism that social media allows.

I think the other replies to you who won't consider this possibility are influenced by trying to take down Amazon, which in my opinion they will do to themselves if it is warranted. No media push is necessary.

We still haven't found our way back to trusted sources. Some day, we will.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#635

Post by viraptor »

cm2187 wrote: post #545
tetromino_ wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone agrees that the website is tired, ugly, and slow, but lots of people still do all their shopping from there because they're used to it and it's easier than maintaining accounts with 15 different retailers with 15 different websites Slow compared to what? Amazon's website feels more responsive and more usable than 90% of online stores I've seen that carry orders of magnitude less variety of inventory. It lo…

Though the filtering features are pretty much useless for almost every product. Too many products to maintain any decent classification. That makes it pretty much useless for looking for computer hardware (that and counterfeit products).

Yet they could do much worse. By just not having multiple options merged into one item makes them better than the disaster that's eBay. In comparison they're not useless, because someone is doing it even worse.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#636

Post by JohnHaugeland »

lamontcg wrote: post #198
mc32 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those idiots! Everyone and their mother knew that printing money since 2008 was going to blow up one day. Technology and unsubstantiated sectors allowed them to print without repercussions for a while and the administration and them also tried to fool people into believing the inflation was transitory... Reckless idiots. And now wage labor is the one to suffer most. 4TT in spending for BBB? Uhhuh! Even Yellen said it…

Everyone is Ludwig von Mises these days. Time to start buying stock in Keynes.

Von Mises is generally a laughing stock in academia. Only the internet thinks he's worth dusting off.

Von Mises has been missing from proper economic discussions in academia for half a century. He predates when economics was a science, and was expected to produce things that matched the data.

Absolutely nobody with any actual training would take his name seriously in practice. Naming him in a non-critical is like mentioning Ivermectin - a red flag that everything you know about the topic comes from social media. You might as well bring up Dr Sebi.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#637

Post by jodrellblank »

ryan93 wrote: post #348
jodrellblank wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " You're hurting your fellow citizens by diluting their labor " No more so than having children and growing the population that way, which is a concept the right generally supports ("family values", "pro life"). > " you are strictly harming not helping your fellow countrymen " It's not like the right do things to help fellow countrymen; taking away rights ("pro choice"), scorning single mothers instead of helping t…

How many pro immigration leftists live their life as if its no more valuable than anyone else's? .001% maybe.If you wanted to help the global poor sending them American dollars would go a lot further in their own country

Being pro immigration doesn't mean you think all the global poor should move 'here' immediately (wherever 'here' is). leftists are more that people who have moved here should be treated as human, not subhuman.

It's normal to think your life is more important than other people's. It's weird to live in Texas and think people born 50 miles away in Mexico are inferior but people born 1,000 miles away in New York are the same, and people born 1,100 miles away in Canada are inferior. In some sense thinking "I just happened to be born here and this doesn't give me any special status over people who weren't" is one way of living life as if it's no more valuable than anyone elses.

> "their own country"

Why nationalism though? Why should someone born in a "shithole country" be obliged to try and make it better instead of moving away? What should compel them to care about the lines on a map? What should compel me in the UK to feel more connected to someone in Norther Ireland (part of the UK) than someone in the Republic of Ireland a few miles away (part of Europe)? Or less connected to people in Spain, but more connected to people in Gibraltar (part of the UK, on the far side of Spain), or people in the Falkland Islands (part of the UK, South Argentina)?

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#638

Post by KennyBlanken »

burntoutfire wrote: post #489
lisper wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it's possible. It is manifestly possible. The Germans do it. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236165/german-workers-satis... The reason it doesn't happen in the U.S. is that workers have been systematically stripped of all of their power, so corporate management now answers exclusively to shareholders. Trying to make life better for your workers puts you at a competitive disadvantage. But it does not…

German economy is famous for being based on small and mid-sized companies (which are often the best in the world at the ultra-specialized thing that they do). My post was on impossiblity of high job satisfaction levels in big organizations, I don't think it's as bad for the mid-sized and small shops.

> German economy is famous for being based on small and mid-sized companies

Companies under 500 people are responsible for half of the jobs in the US.

Companies under 20 workers are ~15% of the employment market.

https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/0414...

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#639

Post by ehvatum »

honkycat wrote: post #349
mc32 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those idiots! Everyone and their mother knew that printing money since 2008 was going to blow up one day. Technology and unsubstantiated sectors allowed them to print without repercussions for a while and the administration and them also tried to fool people into believing the inflation was transitory... Reckless idiots. And now wage labor is the one to suffer most. 4TT in spending for BBB? Uhhuh! Even Yellen said it…

4T is a big number but when I look at the details it all seems very reasonable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan#Origina... Honest question: How are we supposed to maintain our civilization without some government spending? Is climate change going to fix itself? Is our infrastructure going to modernize itself? We need to migrate to EVs and build out energy infrastructure. What is going to happen t…

> Honest question: How are we supposed to maintain our civilization without some government spending?

You speak as if there is currently no government spending, which is bizarre.

> The country's 1% currently own 70% of the wealth

This wealth does not exist as specie unproductively hoarded in vaults or banknotes hidden by misers so as to deprive the rest of us of food and shelter. It is lent and invested in the hope of generating value. The wealthy could spend their wealth on caviar, yachts, hookers, and blow, but instead, they make it available to those who promise to do something useful with it. Even the government itself can raise money borrowing from the wealthy. You may have heard of government bonds, or perhaps even the federal deficit.

Who will build the EVs? Who will build the houses for the homeless? Who will care for the aging and disabled? It's not just a matter of money, or printing it and giving to the poor, the gasoline-burning, the aging, the disabled would not drive up prices.

Someone has to be paid to provide these things, and housing, vehicles, medical care already account for most of our economy. Everyone with the skill and desire to care for the aging and the disabled are already doing it. Everyone with the skill and desire to build houses and cars are already doing it. We have full employment. Inflation is rampant because too many dollars chase too few resources, both people and material. If the new round of COVID stimulus had passed or BBB had passed, there would be more dollars and less investment, but not more resources.

In order to build more EVs, which EV factories should be disassembled and auctioned off for tax revenue? In order to care for more elderly, what elderly care facilities should be closed and sold to land developers? To fund more solar panels, how much do we need to tax solar panels?

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#640

Post by robswc »

ljm wrote: post #535
swat535 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and it has always been like this. Why would companies truly "value" Engineering? The majority of execs thinks we are just interchangeable drones and the only reason the salaries are so high in SV is because they literally can't get away with less. If they could, US salaries would be comparable to Canada or EU which are embarrassingly low for the amount of work they require. They will fire you in an instant to sav…

> If they could, US salaries would be comparable to Canada or EU which are embarrassingly low for the amount of work they require. I think that misses a cultural difference, which is that Canada and EU jobs don't require as much work because our work ethic is different. I can earn 100k in London and be very comfortable doing less than 40 hours a week, never working weekends, never doing crunch time, never being force…

>be very comfortable doing less than 40 hours a week, never working weekends, never doing crunch time, never being forced to work overtime, taking 6 weeks of vacation every year, sometimes more, and half of that is legally mandated

This is pretty normal in the US too. Sure, its not "mandated" but everything besides 6 weeks of vacation is pretty common for SDE.

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